The Japanese automobile giant, Honda breaks cover of the much anticipated Brio Automatic

Japanese car manufacturer, Honda Motor Company created quite a stir in2011, when it came up with Brio and now it has launched the muchanticipated automatic variant of the car. Honda Brio ruled the chart forquite sometime owing to its cute aesthetics, especially the unique rearend and a brilliant fuel efficiency. The cute and compact form factor ofthe Brio made it a convenient vehicle to drive in urban condition.However, in the wake of the fact that all other car manufacturers in thecompetition were coming up with an automatic variant of their popularmodels, it was surprising that Honda delayed this step till now.

The Japanese automobile giant, Honda breaks cover of the much anticipated Brio

However, all is well that ends well and the Japanese automotive giant haslaunched the Brio on October 18, 2012 with the same 1.2 litre iVTECpowertrain, serving on the manual variant with a 5-speed automatictransmission. This move will make this popular model even more fun andconvenient to drive in the congested Indian traffic. The automatic HondaBrio is being offered in two variants namely Brio S (O) AT and V AT.While, the former has been priced at Rs. 5.74 lac, the top of the lineBrio V AT comes with a tag of Rs. 5.99 lac. The automotive giant haspriced the latest launch with a premium of over Rs. 75,000 as compared tothe outgoing manual variant.

Honda has opted for the torque converter system in the new model, unlikeother manufactures that are relying on a CVT transmission. This means thatthe all new 5-speed unit on Honda Brio comes with three mores shiftsbesides the regular P,R,N and D. The D3 position keeps the transmissionrestricted to the first three gears, making it good for overtaking quicklyon road. Moreover, the new transmission utilizes the Drive-By-Wire systemof the powertrain to select the best gear according to the drivingconditions. The optimum gear shifting means that the Brio AT offers anexcellent mileage of 16.5 kmpl, which has been tested by ARAI.

The car maker has not changed anything else from the existing Brio in theautomatic variant. Everything remains the same except the new transmissionand digital readouts for the automatic transmission in the console.Besides the automatic variant, Honda also introduced a new manual modelwith a tag of Rs. 4.26 lac and added features like body colored OutsideRear View Mirrors (ORVM) and door handles. It also comes loaded with a 1DIN MP3 audio system with support for USB and Aux-in support. The Japanesecar maker will be pitching the recently launched Brio AT against popularautomatic hatchbacks like Hyundai i10 AT and Maruti Suzuki A-Star AT.

With Diwali and Dusshera just around the corner, the timing of the newlaunch could get any better as this is one time in the year when Indiancustomers like to spend. It would be interesting to watch which of theautomatic hatchbacks brings the better volumes or if Brio AT will repeatthe success of its manual counterpart.

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